It's the time of year when students get a break, but one recent graduate has only just begun.

Sabrin Khalif has had a busy month. She just graduated simultaneously with an Associate's of Liberal Arts and Sciences from Anoka Ramsey Community College and a high school diploma from Irondale High School.

"Graduating both college and high school, which is crazy to say, considering the fact that my parents didn't get to finish elementary," Khalif said. "So just doing milestone after milestone for my family is something I'm very, very privileged."

Where Khalif's parents grew up in Somalia, school isn't free. 

"My parents came to the country, and the only thing in their mind was to just rebuild. They saw the work. They were very young. They weren't able to go to elementary school, go to middle school, go to high school," Khalif said. "They had so many dreams, but because of their environment, they had, in a sense, they had to give up on that."

But they never gave up on Khalif and her siblings, raising them to treasure education. 

"All of the aspirations my parents wanted, it's now set on me," Khalif said. "Not only to fulfill it, but also to show them that all of their sacrifices, everything that they gave up on, they're able to say, 'Hey, it was actually worth it.'"

Clearly, it was. Khalif decided to make some sacrifices of her own. 

"A lot of sleep. A lot of hangout opportunities, you get texts from your friends, 'Can we go out?' And be like, 'No, I have to study for a final.'" Khalif said. "Or you really just want to live out being a teenager as much as you can, but you have to kind of ground yourself and be like, 'As much as I am a teenager, I'm also a college student, and I have to put out those responsibilities before anything else.'"

Khalif says the most difficult part of being a first-generation high school and college student was her lack of connections.

"I didn't have anyone in my family who was a doctor. I didn't have anyone in my family that's a college graduate, let alone a high school graduate," she said. "And to see some of my peers be able to wrap those opportunities, and I wasn't able to, it was really disheartening. Because it was like my dreams were just as valid as theirs, it's just that my circumstances are different, and I don't think that should declare that I'm less deserving of something."

Khalif wants to become a surgeon and go back to Somalia to address health care disparities there.

"Growing up, I would hear stories come back from home, people who had such simple illnesses that couldn't be cured. Things that I could go to the hospital and just get a simple shot, and I can live my life. We have the worst child mortality rates back home, for something as simple as influenza or malaria," Khalif said. "And it's up to people who are Somali to go back to our country and to fix it, to save lives and to make sure that no child doesn't get to live to see their next birthday for something so simple as a measles shot."

So she's all in on that dream, heading to the University of Minnesota as a junior studying pre-med. She wants to pave a path she was never able to walk.

"I know that it's very difficult to put yourself out there and cold call and cold email a bunch of doctors and be like, 'Hey, can I be able to shadow you? Can I work with you? Can I get volunteer hours?' And I know it's difficult for me, and the last thing I want to do is to make it difficult for another person and for them to think that their dreams and their aspirations don't matter," Khalif said. "And so what I really want to do is create a nonprofit to make it easier for first generation high school students who are interested in STEM or medicine, to be able to pursue their dreams and be able to connect them with doctors, with engineers, with scientists, with people that they hope one day to be like."

So she'll keep working for those who come after her, and those who came before.

"There's a Somali saying where, basically, your parents are your back, they're your shoulders, they're your legs, they're your eyes and they're your heart. You can't live without those things," Khalif said. "And so my parents, they advised me. They were there for me. They were my personal therapist. They were my personal cheerleader. And so to be able now to be like, 'Hey, I did this, and all of your sacrifices were worth it.'"

There's no doubt there will be many emotions ahead and many more milestones, 

"In order to live it, I have to sacrifice everything I have now in order to reap what I sow later on. Nothing in life comes easy. It comes through hardship, it comes through struggle, and that's how you grow," Khalif said. "And when you grow, it's like a flower. You bloom and you're very happy, and you're successful. So that's kind of what's helping me just push on. Even if it's tough, even if it's hard, even if I'm like, 'You know what? I really want to give up. I really want to get a night's sleep.' Just have to keep going because it's there. I can see it."

Up next, a Bachelor's of Human Physiology and a Bachelor's of Public Health from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities on the pre-med track.

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